Broadcast systems traditionally transmit data in one direction from a server system to a plurality of client systems. Users of the client systems typically consume the signals received from the server system as they are broadcast. A concern for broadcasters is determining what content to broadcast. Currently it is difficult for most users of the client systems to provide feedback to broadcasters with regard to programming. For example, many of today's television program broadcasters rely upon Neilson ratings to determine broadcast programming and/or scheduling. Neilson ratings are generally based upon only a small sampling of a cross-section of the public. Broadcaster may also consider user reaction to content metadata. For example, content databases can provide metadata describing a wide range of films. Such metadata does not take into account that some portions of the content may be of interest to particular users while other portions may not be. This may yield an average rating for the entire content but cannot be used to determine the specific portions of the content that are of interest. Consequently, most television viewers have relatively little impact on broadcast schedules and/or content.
Once broadcasters have determined which content to broadcast, individual users may wish to capture (store) a limited subset of the broadcast content that is of interest to them. For example, a user may record a desired television program on a videocassette recorder (VCR) or store a digital broadcast on the internal hard drive of a digital video recorder. Typically, a user is required to explicitly set the criteria used (e.g. date, time) to determine which broadcasts are stored.